Level 3 Thoracic Exercises

Before commencing any of these exercises, you should have already done 15mins of release work to your key areas and some core activation work!

Banded Pull Apart:

Stand with the arms in front of you and holding a band between your hands. Then set posture, ‘shoulders back and down’.

With the band already taut in the starting position, move the arms horizontally backward with the palms facing down.

Return to the starting position maintaining correct posture and repeat.

Keep the chin neutral during the exercise and always do this exercise with a controlled movement.

Do 2 sets of 15 reps

External rotation with band:

Set posture, shoulders back and down

Wrap a band around the hands and flex the elbows 90°.

Externally rotate the arms by bringing the hands out.

Keep the elbows against your sides. Make sure you maintain your posture on the way back to the starting point.

2 X sets of 15 reps

Incline Posture Row:

Lay face down on a workout bench with slight incline. Let your arms hang at 90° from the body with

the elbows straight. Pull your shoulder blades back 20% and down 100%. (Back towards the spine, down towards the hips) Tuck your chin in. (Like you would close a draw) Take a 10kg weight in both hands and do an incline row. The easy part will be pulling towards you, the difficult part is maintaining the scapula and shoulder positions on the way back down. 2x 15 reps

– Progression would be to build up weight and reps

Sit down on a chair with an elastic coming from one side at chest height.

Rotation against resistance:

Keeping the core engaged and the lower body still, rotate the trunk against the resistance of the band. Return to the starting position and do 3x 15reps.

Can progress to:

Can progress again to:

You can always increase the band resistance or the weight on the cables for these exercises. Also you can play around with the height of the band or cable. Through out all of these exercises your core must be engaged for each rep! I have loads more exercises that we can add but start with these and see how you go.